Celebrating ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ at 60: The Beatles debut in a fun-filled romp (2024)

Susan King

August 12, 2024 at 7:00 PM·5 min read

Celebrating ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ at 60: The Beatles debut in a fun-filled romp (1)

Six decades ago, we were in the throes of Beatlemania. The Fab Four scored their first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart “I Want to Hold Your Hand” on Feb. 1. And the U.S. got to meet The Beatles, four lads from Liverpool (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison) when they invaded the U.S. that month making three historic appearances on CBS’ “The Ed Sullivan Show.” They were met with the screams of young girls with burgeoning hormones.By April 4, they had the top five singles on the chart: “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Twist and Shout,” “She Loves You,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “Please Please Me.”

Despite their extraordinary success, hopes weren’t high for their first film, “A Hard Day’s Night,” which opened in the U.S. on Aug. 11. Most films starring a group or singer du jour were horrible.So much so, the New York Times’ Bosley Crowther was in shock when he saw the movie which he described as “a whale of a comedy” adding that it had “so much good humor going for it that it’s awfully hard to resist. It’s a fine conglomeration of madcap clowning in the old Marx Bros style, and it’s done with such a dazzling use of camera that tickles the intellect and electrifies the nerves. “ Crowther singled out Richard Lester who, he said, “directed at such a brisk clip that it seems to come spontaneously.”

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Because no one was sure f the Beatles would just be a passing fancy, the black-and-white movie was made in just six weeks for $500,000. And it premiered in English theaters three month after it was completed. TCM.com noted: “Lester shot the movie on the run with a quirky visual style that draws on his experience as a director of television commercials and utilizes some of the techniques of the French New Wave filmmakers. The London street scenes had to be filmed furtively with only a shot or two possible before interruptions by screaming fans and the police trying to control them.”

Alun Owen, who earned an Oscar nomination for his story and screenplay, came up with a simple but effective plot-chronicling 36 hours in the lives of the boys as they to get to the theater for a TV appearance while Paul tries to keep his troublemaking “clean old man” grandfather (Wilfred Brambell) out of mischief. McCartney would later note: “Alun hung around us and was careful to try and put words in our mouths that he might have heard us speak, so I thought he did a very good script.”

Songs included the title tune, “I Should Have Known Better,” “All My Loving,” “If I Fell,” “All My Loving,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “And I Love Her,” “This Boy (Ringo’s Theme”) and “I’m Happy Just to Dance with You.” And the music video was born with Lester’s innovative staging of “Can’t Buy Me Love” as the boys romp in a large field. Ironically, John wasn’t there they day it was filmed.Adouble was used; close-ups of John were shot later.

Even after 60 years, “A Hard Day’s Night” is sheer joy. Exciting, fun, innocent, sweet.

The Beatles may have had chemistry to spare in the film, but the real star of “A Hard Day’s Night” was Lester who captured the zeitgeist of the Swinging 60s.Lester, now 92, told me in a 2014 L.A. Times email interview that he wasn’t influenced by any filmmakers on “A Hard Day’s Night.”Lester recalled “I came into the industry totally innocent of cineastes, cinema and the greats of the past in film. Coming from TV, I found film as a huge relief where you could correct some of your mistakes! ‘Hard Day’s Night’ was made as it was just because it seemed to be the best way of asking four non-actors to properly do justice to their personalities in an unfriendly medium.”

Lester changed the cinematic language of the movie musical. And who did he influence?Well, just think two years after “A Hard Day’s Night,” NBC premiered its pop musical comedy series ‘The Monkees” which borrowed the frenetic visual style and music video sensibility. No wonder Lester won the MTV Music Award in the 1980s honoring him as the “father of music videos.”

He went on to make movies for another 25 years including the Beatles 1965 hit “Help!” starring the Beatles, 1965’s “The Knack…and How to Get It,” which won the Palme d’or, 1968’s “Petulia,” 1973 “The Three Musketeers” and the 1974 sequel “The Four Musketeers” and 1976’s “Robin and Marian.”

In 2012, the British Film Institute gave him a Fellowship, the British film industry’s highest honor, for his work. His citation read: “Richard Lester has created a unique body of work which has enriched the lives of millions with his brilliantly surreal humour and innovative style. Although born in the US, he has lived In Britain for 60 years and created some of the most enduring and influential creations of British cinema.”

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